Malebranche Quotes & Sayings

If pure philosophy took any of its ideas from Christian revelation, if anything in the Bible and the Gospel has passed into metaphysics, if, in short, it is inconceivable that the system of Descartes, Malebranche, and Leibniz would be what in fact they are had they been altogether withdrawn from Christian influence, then it becomes, highly probable that since the influence of Christianity on philosophy was a reality, the concept of Christian philosophy is not without a real meaning. — Etienne Gilson

Imagination is the mad boarder. — Nicolas Malebranche

In this connection, faith and experience teach us many truths by means of the short-cut of authority and by the proofs of very pleasant and agreeable feelings. — Nicolas Malebranche

I love good and pleasure, I hate evil and pain, I want to be happy and I am not mistaken in believing, that people, angels and even demons have those same inclinations. — Nicolas Malebranche

You cannot of yourself move your arm or alter your position, situation, posture, do to other men good or evil, or effect the least change in the world. — Nicolas Malebranche

We are made to know and love God. — Nicolas Malebranche

We see things in this material world, wherein our bodies dwell, only because our mind through its attention lives in another world, only because it contemplates the beauties of the archetypal and intelligible world which Reason contains. — Nicolas Malebranche

As our bodies live upon the earth and find sustenance in the fruits which it produces, so our minds feed on the same truths as the intelligible and immutable substance of the divine Word contains. — Nicolas Malebranche

I beg of you always to dwell upon the necessity of a thorough understanding of principles, in order to stop the vivacity of his mind, and please do not forget to meditate upon the subject of our discussion. — Nicolas Malebranche

He has willed - He wills incessantly - that the modifications of the mind and those of the body shall be reciprocal. This is the conjunction and the natural dependence of the two parts of which we are constituted. — Nicolas Malebranche

I do not believe there is anything useful which men can know with exactitude that they cannot know by arithmetic and algebra. — Nicolas Malebranche

We are not our own light. — Nicolas Malebranche

One should assiduously pursue perfection without ever claiming to attain it. — Nicolas Malebranche

The latter had assumed the reality of the external world on the credit of God; and here, of course, it seems strange that, whereas the other theistic philosophers endeavour to demonstrate the existence of God from that of the world, Descartes, on the contrary, proves the existence of the world first from the existence and trustworthiness of God; it is the cosmological proof the other way round. Here too Malebranche goes a step farther and teaches that we see all things immediately in God himself. This certainly is equivalent to explaining something unknown by something even more unknown. — Arthur Schopenhauer

God transforms, so to speak, this air into words, into various sounds. He makes you understand these various sounds through the modifications by which you are affected. — Nicolas Malebranche

God joins us together by means of the body, in consequence of the laws of the communication of movements. He affects us with the same feelings in consequence of the laws of the conjunction of body and soul. — Nicolas Malebranche

Our soul is not united to our body in the ordinary sense of these terms. It is immediately and directly united to God alone. — Nicolas Malebranche

Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the Soul, — Nicolas Malebranche

I am not my own light unto myself. — Nicolas Malebranche

Gay diversity is like the Village People. You can all wear different stupid outfits as long as you sing the same stupid song. — Jack Malebranche

Do not fear lest you should meditate too much upon Him and speak of Him in an unworthy way, providing you are led by faith. Do not fear lest you should entertain false opinions of Him so long as they are in conformity with the notion of the infinitely perfect Being. — Nicolas Malebranche

When I touch a human hand, I touch heaven. — Nicolas Malebranche

Spirit" is matter seen in a stronger light. What else did Malebranche mean when he spoke of "seeing all things in God"? Existence is a mystery because the light of it is inexhaustible. — L. P. Jacks

Prejudices are not easily got rid of as an old coat which is no longer thought of. — Nicolas Malebranche

We can always make ourselves liked provided we act likable, but we cannot always make ourselves esteemed, no matter what our merits are. — Nicolas Malebranche

You will not dishonor the divine perfections by judgments unworthy of them, provided you never judge of Him by yourself, provided you do not ascribe to the Creator the imperfections and limitations of created beings. — Nicolas Malebranche

We are rational creatures: Our virtue and perfection is to love reason, or rather to love order. — Nicolas Malebranche

I am unable, when I turn to myself, to recognize any of my faculties or my capacities. The inner sensation which I have of myself informs me that I am, that I think, that I will, that I have sensory awareness, that I suffer, and so on; but it provides me with no knowledge whatever of what I am - of the nature of my thought, my sensations, my passions, or my pain - or the mutual relations that obtain between all these things ... I have no idea whatever of my soul. — Nicolas Malebranche

All creatures are united to God alone in an immediate union. They depend essentially and directly upon Him. Being all alike equally impotent, they cannot be in reciprocal dependence upon one another. — Nicolas Malebranche

You find yourself in the world, without any power, immovable as a rock, stupid, so to speak, as a log of wood. — Nicolas Malebranche